There is no question that driverless cars will encourage more road usage. As the costs of traveling falls, cars will travel more frequently and farther. Driverless deliveries become easier and restaurants and supermarkets will likely expand their delivery radiuses.

Carolyn Loh, associate professor in Wayne State University’s Urban Planning Department, wrote a column identifying issues that are of particular interest to urban planners, particularly in light of the upcoming midterm and statewide election campaigns. 

"If Ford was prepared to come in and redevelop that building, then this is what is called a planning gain," said Robin Boyle, professor of urban planning at Wayne State University. 

Comparing politicians to Hitler is nothing new, of course. We live in an age where George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton (“Hitlery”) and Barack Obama have all seamlessly been compared to Hitler. That’s just a few of the more recent examples, but they clearly show just how little value such glib analogies have.

Dating anxiety is well-documented, but, being single also has moments of anxiety. In fact, the fear of being single is often based on social judgment that “there is something wrong with you” for not maintaining relationships, says Stephanie Spielmann, assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University, who has studied the fear of being single. 

“If you hate legal immigration, then Trump’s new plan is for you,” Jonathan T. Weinberg wrote. The plan, according to Weinberg, would give us a nearly 40 percent cut in what President Trump calls “chain migration,” and the rest of us call “family-based migration” – legal immigration to the United States to join a close family member who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder. “Trump’s plan is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how U.S. immigration law works, and what immigration to this country has always looked like. This plan isn’t an attack on illegal immigration; it’s an attack on the legal immigration that has made this country strong,” Weinberg wrote.

What makes a president’s words ring throughout history? What are the best presidential speeches in history? Wayne State University history professor Marc Kruman says the most impactful presidential speeches usually come at inaugural addresses when the leaders tend to be aspirational. Kruman says Trump’s first inaugural address, which referenced “American carnage” and other dark and negative imagery, played to his campaign style. Kruman says Trump is unlikely to change his style and delivery any time soon. “I’d be surprised if he sought to redirect it,” says Kruman.

The first year of Donald Trump’s presidency has inspired a fresh wave of women’s movements. Both one day and one year after his inauguration, millions of people across the globe participated in the first and second women’s marches, demonstrating support for causes such as equal pay, safe workplaces and campuses, reproductive rights and a stronger social safety net.

The sight of meteors similar to the one that that flashed above Windsor and Detroit Tuesday night is more common than some may think. "There's sort of ten-ish per year that get hundreds of people reporting that they've seen it," said David Cinabro, the chair of Wayne State University's physics and astronomy department.

Last year brought news of upheavals in the world, around the country and in our backyard. News of hurricanes and the California fires made me more grateful than ever to claim southeastern Michigan as home. It also makes me concerned that not everyone in southeast Michigan benefits from our region's riches. Worse, I fear that we are being reckless with our treasures. Thus, I offer this resolution for southeastern Michigan: Let's think like a region in 2018.    

Saeed Khan, senior lecturer in Near East and Asia studies at Wayne State University, explains why there is so much tension behind the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Howard Lupovitch, associate professor of history and the director of the Cohn Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State University, explains that President Trump’s announcement was part of promises he made during the presidential campaign.   

As an anthropologist who specializes in reconstructing past diets, I can say that even though we don’t have a definitive account of the menu at the first Thanksgiving, letters and recorded oral histories give us a pretty good idea of what they probably ate. And we know for a fact that it didn’t include mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

A book by a Detroit historian is inspiring a movie about the early activism of Rosa Parks and her quest for justice for a rape survivor. The upcoming film will focus on a real-life event that occurred long before Parks made history in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. Parks helped spark the landmark Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama and became an icon of the civil rights movement. But a decade before that, she was one of many African-American women fighting for the right to live and travel without fear of racial and sexual violence. The early activism of Parks is detailed in "At the Dark End of the Street," an award-winning 2010 book written by Wayne State University adjunct associate history professor Danielle McGuire.